Chevron’s new energy lead says scaling green hydrogen in the US today demand perfect conditions, as uneven policy and tightening incentives make replication of the company’s green hydrogen energy storage project difficult.
Robert Nunmaker, who is General Manager, Commercial & Sales at Chevron New Energies, was speaking in an interview at Wood Mackenzie’s Hydrogen Conference 2025 in London.
“In our case, we have our ACES Delta project in Utah, which we are working on with partners as the majority stakeholder.”
Nunmaker said the salt cavern on the site, which can store hydrogen, effectively acts as a gigantic battery, for relatively easy access, given the good transport infrastructure.
“The geology is perfect. Plus there is an existing coal-powered plant that needs to decarbonise. And then you have got subsidies and incentives from California – from California power purchasers.”
The project is installing 220MW of electrolysers that will produce green hydrogen from renewables. That hydrogen will be fed into a gas turbine combined cycle power plant. The developers also expect to supply molecules to users in the Western states, including California.
Nunmaker said it would be “far-fetched” to be able to replicate the project in other places, and even here, the project has not been plain sailing.
“We invested early in the concept, but then we exited. Later we rejoined. It shows how things can change fast,” said Nunmaker. “But right now it is a very exciting opportunity.”
The current climate in the US, however, makes many potential projects challenging, said Nunmaker, with policymaking being uneven and imperfect
“You want a clear signal [in terms of policy],” he said. “You need stability to get projects landed. Once you have stability of policy you can get on and try to engineer cost-competitiveness.”
Nunmaker said the original Inflation Reduction Act did some good things for hydrogen, delivering the incentives to build out supply nodes while stopping short of a carbon tax.
But he said the current context in the US did not create domestic demand for low-carbon hydrogen.
President Donald Trump’s tax and spending bill, signed into law in July, shortened the start-of-construction deadline for the 45V clean hydrogen production tax credit from 2033 to 2027.
“Today, there is no reason other than good corporate stewardship to look to these higher cost options,” he said.
He said he thought the new deadline for the 45V tax credit would be maintained now, but it was challenging for any projects to qualify.
“My project is not targeting it. We cannot make the timeframe. We are focused on the 45Q opportunity of carbon capture at $85 a tonne. It will be hard for anyone to meet 45V.”
